How bakery orders get lost
A bakery's busiest hours are in the kitchen, not at a desk. Orders still come in all day. Someone asks for a birthday cake in a DM. Someone else emails about a tray for an office party. A regular calls during the morning rush. A custom cake also needs details the first message almost never has: the date, the size, the flavor, the design, pickup or delivery. So the owner spends the evening chasing answers and copying orders into a list.
- Orders scattered across DMs, email, phone and paper.
- Custom requests that need three messages before you can quote.
- Regular orders and custom inquiries mixed together.
- A website that customers can't find, or can't order from.
- New tools that would mean learning a whole new system.
How we'd set it up for a bakery
We'd usually start with where you already keep orders. If that's a spreadsheet, we keep the spreadsheet.
- Two forms, not one. A standard order form for the things on your menu, and a separate custom request form for cakes and special orders. They ask different questions.
- Ask the custom questions up front. The custom form asks for the date, the size, the flavors and the design notes you need, so the request arrives ready to quote. You decide which fields are required.
- Send each one to the right place. Standard orders go to one tab of your order sheet. Custom requests go to another. Nothing has to be copied over.
- Quotes stay with you. A custom cake is priced by a person. The form collects the details; you send the quote.
- Be findable. A website set up so people searching for a bakery can find it, with business email and brand assets that match.
What we built for Butter & Bark
Butter & Bark is a bakery in New York. Now every order and custom request lands in one sheet the owner already knows how to use. See the build →
- A website set up to be found on Google.
- Order and custom-order forms on the site.
- Each order is written to the right tab, Orders or Custom Inquiries, of the owner's order sheet.
- Business email and brand assets.
This build follows our usual rule: we didn't move the owner to new software. The order sheet the owner already used became the place everything lands.
What we don't do
- We don't make you switch from the sheet or tool you already use by default.
- We don't price your custom orders. The form gathers details; you quote.
- We don't promise search rankings. We set the site up to be found.
Related
How many places do your orders come in from?
Bring last week's custom requests to a free 30-minute review, and leave knowing where they should land.
Book a free 30-minute review →Bakery questions
Can website orders go into the spreadsheet I already use?
Yes. For Butter & Bark, every order and custom request lands in the order sheet the owner already knew how to use, so there's nothing new to learn.
Why separate regular orders from custom cake requests?
They need different details. A custom request needs a date, size, flavors and design notes before you can quote it. On the Butter & Bark build, each kind goes to its own tab: Orders or Custom Inquiries.
Will the form price custom cakes automatically?
No. Pricing a custom order stays with you. The form collects the details so you can quote without chasing the customer for them.
Can you help my bakery get found on Google?
We set the website up to be found on Google, as we did for Butter & Bark. We don't promise rankings.
Do you only work with bakeries?
No. Bakeries are one of the food businesses we serve, and the same approach fits any shop that takes orders and special requests from several places.